an insatiable appetite for my region by VINCENT NATTRESS

Come for the Monkey, Stay for the Food

My wife and I have often bemoaned the fact that it is next to impossible to find real food when driving on the I-5 corridor. We have made several trips through Oregon, and we always end up struggling to avoid chain restaurants and find real cooking. If only someone made a guide of little, local gems that just could not be missed in, say, Drain, Oregon or Burlington, Washington.

I was in Burlington early this morning having my car serviced, and it is a perfect example of the kind of towns – and I use the term loosely – that grow up like mushrooms next to a busy highway. When I was a kid it was little more than a wide spot in the road. But now with the city’s coffers swollen with tax revenue form the many, many big box businesses, Burlington was able to build their new city hall without having to issue bonds to pay for it. Those stores employ folks, no doubt, but they do not do a lot to help the culinary scene. Indeed, when my stomach started to growl this morning I found that the only place on the strip of new businesses that seemed to be serving breakfast was a sports bar. So I headed out State Route 20 toward Sedro Wooley in hopes of finding real food.

And find it I did, at Mom’s Cafe. The inviting sign out front – the one of the big monkey waving you in – was not what brought me to them. It was the woman I stopped on the street who told me that there was a cafe just up the road, and they always seemed to be busy. When I walked in and sat down at the bar, I could see into the kitchen and there, behind a wooden cooling rack crammed with fresh-from-the-oven biscuits, was a woman in a house dress and knit cardigan sweater and an apron. She was at work on a Mickey Mouse-shaped pancake for one of her regular customers. I knew I was in the right spot and that one of those biscuits had my name on it.

The food was just what I wanted. Old fashioned grated potato hash browns, biscuits with butter and honey or, if you desire, buried in gravy, eggs any style, good sausage – either link or patty – and a standard order of bacon is four sliced. The specialty of the house, I am told, involves a pile of hash browns with scrambled eggs, vegetables, and melted cheese. I will have to wait for next time to try it. I got out the door with breakfast and coffee for $8.89 plus tip.

The lunch specials feature the names of the regulars who inspired them. There are burgers and a fried egg sandwich among them. I have to say that I have not tried them, but based on the breakfast fare, I intend to return and try the lot of it. I think you should too, because places like Mom’s, where the waitress addresses the cook as Mom – because it’s her Mom – are few and far between these days. They need preserving and they are well worth the five minute detour if you are on your way through Burlington.

3 Responses

Oh, they seem to be dropping from our lives faster than flies. Truck stops go corporate, big boxes and yet another franchise slave “entrepeneur” and prety soon the “deletes” from any one’s book will be the biggest task, after seeking the few, the deserving, the good-food, sole- propreitor gems.

My kids finally got to understand about the chain fast foods were “against my religion” and quit asking. They learned to be creative and open to new experiences. They learned about “the old world” of pre-franchise America. Even other peoples kids started to understand the routines. “Any place in town that bakes its own pies?” And the same again once we were seated in a “good prospect.” The smiles on young faces is more than well worth the looking and finding.

Yes indeed, we could probably start the book listing right here. I will have to see if the easy to miss berry pie heaven on the way to Grey harbor has somehow persisted. I could write a doze obituaries, reminises. New arivals are as rare as….home baked goods. maybe rarer.

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Welcome

This blog is an exploration of my region's food, season by season. I will focus on foraging, farming and how to cook what I find. I will also discuss food politics and the history of what we eat and why.

Foraging often reveals traditions that make this region unique. I will do my best to remind us of some of these vanishing traditions, because they reveal a lot about our cultural history.

Agriculture shapes the landscape we live in. Right now farming is undergoing a critical transition. More than ever we all need to understand the importance of diverse, regional food production, for what it means to our region, our bucolic surroundings, the safety and stability of our food system and our own personal health.

Exploring these food issues reveals a lot about our environmental and economic issues too. I will ask questions about the ways in which we are changing our food systems and how, as a result, our food is changing us.

This is a bountiful area, but also a changing area, and population growth, environmental degradation and vanishing food traditions threaten to change the way we feed ourselves forever.

Food is a lens through which to view where we are and how we got here. Because of this we can begin to ask the question about what to do next, so that we can live our lives more deliciously while leaving something behind that is worthy of the next generation.